. >>> president obama signing disaster declarations overnight for the state of new york and new jersey. joining us on the cnbc "newsline," former new jersey governor christine todd whitman. governor, good to have you with us. good morning. >> good morning. how are you surviving? >> hacking in there. we have power which is more than a lot of people can say. ahead of this storm people expected given the experience of irene that officials were overselling it. that clearly was not the case. >> certainly was not the case. it's been an amazing storm, and the aftermath is going to take a long time to clean up which is going to be a real problem. >> what's happening right now that you find most important? >> well, frankly, it's the way -- it's the preparation. it was the pre-storm activity that took place that's most impressed me from both the government side on both sides of the river and from the utilities. i mean, people learned a lesson from irene, and they really seem to have put things together in the best way possible. having said that, the amount of damage nobody is going to be satisfi